


The Fire, and Tears, and Love Alive

by hellostarlight20



Series: We Are Never Alone [6]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, With a reception put together by Jack and the TARDIS, Yes it Is, this is the wedding between The Doctor and Rose Tyler, wedding fic!, with guest appearances by Martha's Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-06-21
Packaged: 2018-04-05 13:19:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4181289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellostarlight20/pseuds/hellostarlight20
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The four of them have managed to survive time traveling across the universe, finding each other, living together in 1969, Martha’s family, and a not so leisurely stroll on the leisure planet Midnight. Second (and third) chances are rare and neither the Doctor nor Rose are going to let this one go without a fight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Fluff. Happy fluffity-fluffyness. With a poem, where the title was taken from.  
>   
> [Kilodalton](http://kilodalton.tumblr.com/fic-masterlist) is my wonderful beta. Have you read her stuff? You should!  
> 

**_The wondrous moment of our meeting_** by Alexander Pushkin  
The wondrous moment of our meeting...   
Still I remember you appear   
Before me like a vision fleeting,   
A beauty's angel pure and clear. 

In hopeless ennui surrounding   
The worldly bustle, to my ear   
For long your tender voice kept sounding,   
For long in dreams came features dear. 

Time passed. Unruly storms confounded   
Old dreams, and I from year to year   
Forgot how tender you had sounded,   
Your heavenly features once so dear. 

My backwoods days dragged slow and quiet—  
Dull fence around, dark vault above —   
Devoid of God and uninspired,   
Devoid of tears, of fire, of love. 

Sleep from my soul began retreating,   
And here you once again appear   
Before me like a vision fleeting,   
A beauty's angel pure and clear. 

In ecstasy my heart is beating,   
Old joys for it anew revive;   
Inspired and God-filled, it is greeting   
The fire, and tears, and love alive. 

****  
The Doctor on a mission was unstoppable.

When he’d asked her to marry him, and Rose had (naturally) agreed, she expected a little time. Granted, she hadn’t been certain what the ritual involved (a few words exchanged? dim lights surrounding them? a week’s worth of abstinence and separate rooms?) but she’d expected the Doctor to want to wait a bit longer.

He was a pro at that.

He hadn’t. Nope. It was all _Marry me?_ And her _Yes, oh yes._ And then planning.

‘Planning’ where the Doctor was concerned was a strong word. Perhaps too strong a word. And yet it only took three days, a smug Jack and Martha, a gorgeous sun dress the TARDIS insisted she wear, a compliant Winston, and they were on Jahoo.

They’d gathered Sarah and Luke and a couple of Luke’s friends; one of the Doctor’s early companions, Jo Grant, whom Sarah had contacted through Alistair for the article she’d written on the disappearing bees; Alistair and Doris Lethbridge-Stewart; Martha’s family including Leo’s girl, Shonara and their daughter, Keisha; and K9.

Winston had sniffed K9, who’d taken the high road and let the feline sniff away. Apparently, the cat liked what he smelled, because next thing Rose knew, he, K9, and Keisha were playing down one of the TARDIS hallways.

Rose didn’t need a maid of honor; the ceremony, as the Doctor explained it, didn’t require witnesses. But Martha, dressed in a lovely green sundress with a crisscross back, stood for her while Jack, in grey trousers, black braces, and a white oxford, stood for the Doctor.

“This sort of ceremony is supposed to be private,” the Doctor said as they stood on the deserted pink coral beaches of Jahoo, light years from Earth.

He was dressed in his brown pinstripe trousers and a dark blue oxford. Rose had stared in shock for several moments when she saw him standing just outside the TARDIS. No suit jacket, no long brown coat, and looking as calm and relaxed as she’d ever seen him outside their most intimate moments.

She couldn’t wait to peel the clothes off him.

“It’s a true commitment,” he said interrupting her very impure thoughts. “Not a political one.”

“What was your first marriage like?” Rose asked as sweet-smelling wind danced around them and the crystalline waves lazily crashed on a bed of coral sand. The rising sun cast a pink-purple light on the beach.

“Just a marriage.” He lifted her hand and kissed her inner wrist. “Nothing like this. Political as all good and proper Gallifreyan marriages were. Done more for genetic exchange and political standing than anything.”

Rose laughed. “Romantic lot, you Time Lords.”

The Doctor grinned down at her, laughter lighting his brown eyes. It was good to see him happy. Rose could still see the darkness in his gaze, but whatever weighed on him he’d decided to keep to himself. No matter what she’d said or did didn’t change that.

Oh, she’d get him to talk, she just hadn’t figured out how to yet. But Rose was tired of secrets and lies between them. Tired of prying those out of him one painful admission at a time.

“It wasn’t really a marriage like you think of them—no promises to love and honor until death. Not even a lifelong commitment.”

He shrugged and rolled his shoulders, but his voice remained even and the look in his gaze still looked light and happy. His fingers held hers, but not desperately as he did when he was afraid the emotions would sweep him away. “Not even a regeneration-long commitment,” he added.

“A simple contract signed and witnessed by both families, a couple judges, and several medical solicitors. Then genetic material was taken for the looms, and poof!” He snapped his fingers. “You had an instant and lovely connection to the other house. My house, Lungbarrow, was very highly connected—lots of political connections, lots of diverse genetic material.”

She glanced up at him, but rather than the hard, closed off look he normally had whenever talking about his past, other Time Lords, or Gallifrey, he looked sad. Just sad. Rose didn’t know what to say, not in a setting like this, with others watching and waiting for them. Instead, she squeezed his hand and tried to convey all the love and affection and understanding she could with that one touch.

The Doctor cleared his throat and shook himself. “Yes. Well. There was never a ceremony, no exchange of vows or bonds or bonding pendants.”

Rose lifted her fingers to her neck, no longer bearing the red stone pendant he’d given her. “That’s for later, yeah? Just between us.”

“Yes,” he said quietly. “It’s my promise to you.”

“And this one?” she asked.

Everything had been so rushed, they’d invited everyone, told them to pack, then picked them up in the TARDIS and off they were to the deserted pink coral beaches of Jahoo. Rose loved hearing him say the planet’s name, the way his lips curled around the word, the faces he made when he did so.

“This ceremony, I mean,” she clarified, leaning her head on his shoulder. “What’s this ceremony about?” 

Little Keisha ran into the water, _(It’s safe, I promise, just no long distance swimming; prolonged exposure to the water isn’t good for anyone. It’s one of the reasons why Jahoo is deserted.)_ laughing like the happy child she was, and ran back to where K9 and Winston sat on the beach. Whether the animals kept an eye on Keisha, shared stories, or just sat there, Rose didn’t know.

Leo scooped Keisha up with a wide, happy grin and tossed her over his shoulder. She squealed in delight as Leo brought her back to the small area where everyone else stood. The fact they were on a planet far from her own didn’t seem to faze the little girl.

Rose wondered what she’d tell her play friends when they got back to Earth. But then no one would probably believe her. Still, she was glad Shonara had accepted this new reality so easily. It made things easier on Martha.

“This,” the Doctor whispered, fingers squeezing her hand. Rose felt his lips brush the top of her head and smiled. “This is for you. Not exactly a traditional Earth ceremony, I grant you that. And not exactly on Earth. And not exactly,” he added without taking breath, “a ceremony. But then I doubt any church or government on Earth will recognize me as a different species. And I prefer to make my own rules, anyway.”

Rose chuckled at that. He shrugged, his shoulder moving gently under her head. She pulled back and looked up at him to see his slow grin, the one that made heat curl in her belly and the world disappear until only the two of them existed.

“This is close enough; our promise to each other.”

“That’s all I need.” Heart swelling with love and affection for this man, Rose leaned up on tiptoe and kissed him. She wished her mum and Mickey could be here, and Pete and Tony. But their new family was enough. “Thank you.”

“Oi! You two!” Jack called from his place on the beach. Martha stood a couple steps away with Tish and her mum, but grinned wickedly at Rose before crossing to take Jack’s hand at the head of the small group. “That’s for after. Though I guess a little ceremony never stopped you before.”

Martha smacked his arm and said something to him the wind swept away. But Jack’s eyebrows wiggled and his grin was totally unrepentant. Rose blushed and laughed. When she looked at the Doctor, saw the tips of his ears flushed pink, but his grin was that open, wide grin that told her of his total happiness.

Gathering their friends here had been a big step for him; showing his love for her in the intimacy of their bedroom or their home on the TARDIS was one thing. Even doing more than holding her hand or brushing his fingers over the small of her back or the base of her neck in front of Jack and Martha was a big step.

But to declare his love and affection in front of people they considered family?

Huge step for the Doctor.

“Ready, love?” The Doctor asked, using a rare term of affection.

It threw her for a moment, his use of an endearment. She often thought the way he said her name, that soft _Rose_ , drawn out and full of overflowing emotion as if the simple word was the most precious in the universe, was enough. But to hear him use the word _love_ , to hear him refer to her as such, made her heart stumble as much as her feet did.

This day was just full of surprises. Maybe she worried a tad too much over what secrets he continued to keep. Or maybe this ceremony was the start of being truly open. Rose took his hand and nodded. She couldn’t form words, not over the love and affection and need and hope and future clogging her throat.

“You and me,” she said with a grin.

Rose watched the Doctor’s eyes zero in on her tongue; she’d purposely peeked it in the corner of her mouth. He took her hand and pulled her closer and grinned in return. Feeling as if she floated down the pink coral path, they walked hand-in-hand to where the others stood.

Jack never admitted it, not even after they’d taken the party back to the TARDIS and the simulated beach She and Jack had created. Not even after a bottle or two of champagne and dancing with Martha. But Rose swore she saw tears in his eyes when the Doctor slid the ring on her finger and promised to love and treasure her for the rest of his life.

The significance of that was not lost on Rose.  
 _His_ life.  
Not just this regeneration.  
Not just her life.

The ceremony was brief and intimate, a few spoken words between them in front of the others, then a big party organized by Jack. With lots of dancing. Rose saw Jack dancing with Francine then Jack dancing with Clive. That man could charm anyone. Everyone. She’d even seen him in a strange three-way with Alistair and Doris and had danced with Sarah several times.

Rose nudged the Doctor. “Go dance with Sarah,” she instructed.

Looking totally relaxed, trainer-clad feet on a chair opposite them, shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows, one arm around the back of her chair, fingers caressing her bare shoulder, he looked down at her from where they sat together at one of the tables. His eyebrows shot up and he grinned.

In a move that surprised her, the Doctor leaned down and kissed her tenderly. The kiss didn’t surprise her—it was the fact he’d done it in front of people. But a happy warmth spread through her and she grinned back at him.

“Public displays of affection, Doctor,” she whispered. “Whatever is this world coming to?”

“Rose Tyler, if I can’t kiss you at our wedding, when can I?” he pressed his lips to hers again and went to steal Sarah from Jack.

Surprised, but pleasantly so, Rose vowed that today was not the end of this new and improved publicly affectionate Doctor.

Then again, she did love knowing how _affectionate_ he could be in the privacy of their room. 

Watching him cut in on Jack and Sarah, Rose grinned. She knew he wasn’t a dancer—well, she suspected. He’d only danced with her once after he and Tommy defeated The Wire during the street party after Queen Elizabeth’s coronation…twice if she counted their aborted dance in the basement of Albion Hospital.

Rose decided to count it. It was the only time she’d danced with her first Doctor and she treasured that memory.

Watching the Doctor and Sarah dancing, Rose realized how much she missed her mum. Mum and Mickey and Pete and Tony. Even Jake and a few people from the cannon project she’d managed to grow close to.

She tried to envision the Doctor dancing with Jackie and couldn’t. Just could not. But oh, she wanted to. Maybe Pete and Mickey could reestablish the connection to her mobile. Though she had decided to get a new one once she’d returned, even though the Doctor had improved hers far beyond even the new smartphones currently available. But she kept the one. Just in case.

“May I join you?” Francine asked.

She held a flute of champagne and it looked like it wasn’t her first glass. Rose nodded and shifted to offer her the chair the Doctor had sat in. “Of course.”

“I wanted to say congratulations,” Francine began.

She sipped her drink and Rose wondered if she realized the label was from 300 years in her future. Grinning to herself, she decided not to mention that. Francine Jones had taken all this—Martha, Martha and Jack, the Doctor, Jahoo, the TARDIS remarkably well—no point in tipping the balance.

“Thank you,” Rose said and sipped her own glass. It was only her second, but she was still tired from the DNA treatments and didn’t want to miss a moment of today.

“I’m sorry,” Francine said with such sincerity Rose blinked. “I worry about Martha, and I know I wasn’t exactly polite during dinner last week.”

Had it only been a week? Rose dismissed that. Relatively speaking, for Francine it probably had been.

“I told you then,” Rose said, “my mum didn’t like it either. But it’s so amazing out there, Francine. You’ve seen Jahoo. That’s only one place. We’ve seen comets and nebulas and stars being born. It’s…just amazing.”

Francine nodded but unlike dinner, she looked curious and intrigued rather than about to attack. She took another sip of champagne.

“I think I’d like to meet your mum,” she said quietly.

“I’d love for you to meet her,” Rose admitted in an equally soft voice. Though she really couldn’t see Jackie Tyler and Francine Jones in the same room—the mind boggled. “But I don’t think that’s going to be possible.”

“I’m sorry for that,” Francine said. “I’m sorry she’s not here to see you marry the Doctor.”

“I am, too.” Rose took a deep breath, swallowed the grief and grinned. “But I can’t say she’d be surprised. She always thought we were together long before we were, well, actually together.”

“And she didn’t mind? The Doctor being an alien and all?”

Rose looked at her sharply, but didn’t get a sense of prying here or even meddling or much of anything except perhaps curiosity. “At first I think she did. But it was always less about him being alien and more about being away from home and her not knowing what I was doing.”

Rose waited a moment then added, “She trusted him. Trusted both of us. And knew he’d do everything in his power to protect me. And she’d do everything in her power to protect both of us.”

Francine watched her for long, long moments as if trying to gauge her sincerity or perhaps just gauge Rose’s seriousness. Finally, she nodded. The other woman finished her glass and set it on the table. “Were people looking for you two?”

“The Doctor,” Rose clarified. “And they tried to use me to get to him, and because they were using me, they used my mum. She didn’t like that.”

Now, Rose laughed. Jackie had never told her all that had happened with Elton, but enough that Rose knew the whole story had held less of Jackie’s innocence than her mum claimed. Still, the end result was the same.

“Once we were…well, there,” Rose continued, “she told me. She’d refused to talk to anyone there who asked even the simplest questions about me. As far as I know, she barely told Pete, my er…” how did one describe an alternate reality version of her father? “My stepdad,” Rose decided, “about the Doctor. At least only a little more than he’d already known.”

“And is that what we are now?” Francine wondered. But it still lacked the nosy prying, the tipsy almost-accusations of before. Now Francine just sounded curious and maybe a little out of her depth. “Are we the ones left behind to protect you four?”

“Francine,” Rose said kindly, “You’re family. And that’s all that matters.”

Picking up the other woman’s hand, she squeezed. From the corner of her eye she saw Martha watching from where she danced with Luke. Through her bond with the Doctor he felt his concern. Smiling at Francine, Rose focused on her and no one else.

“I didn’t just invite you here because Martha wanted you. I wanted you,” Rose said. “I wanted my family here at my wedding. And you’re family.”

Francine blinked back the tears Rose could see in her eyes and nodded. “Thank you.”

Rose smiled and watched as Francine claimed a dance with Leo, and Keisha carried Winston onto the floor for a dance. The moment the current song ended, the Doctor returned to her side.

“What was all that about?” He asked, reclaiming his chair and her hand.

“Francine wanted to apologize for dinner,” Rose said, leaning her head back on his shoulder.

She didn’t tell him the rest of their conversation and only then realized the trust Francine had placed in her by being open and honest. Rose wouldn’t betray that nor would she forget it.

“Dance with me,” Rose said instead and stood. She held out her hand for her lover, her husband, and led him onto the dance floor.

He had the moves, she already knew that, but since this was, technically, their wedding, Rose wanted a dance. And the Doctor danced. Twirled her around the dance floor to the big bands (Jack’s doing no doubt), and held her close to soft instrumentals.

Then Jack cut in with his loud announcement, “This is our song, Rosie,” and held her close.

“I feel like I should hear the sounds of German bombers,” Rose admitted with a laugh.

And a shiver of memory, the feel of dancing on that Chula warship by Big Ben, the feel of falling from the barrage balloon, the nanogenes…the Doctor’s arms around her in that hospital basement.

“Naa,” Jack said and spun her out and around. “This is better. I’ve never seen you happier,” he added in a quiet voice she rarely heard from him. Quiet-sincere-open- serious.

“I am happy, Jack,” Rose admitted softly, resting her head on her friend’s shoulder. “More than I thought possible.”

“Good. About time you two crazy kids got married.” Rose laughed, as she knew she was meant to. “Martha and I are packed for our week at her flat, so whenever you and the Doctor are ready for our honeymoon, you can leave.”

“Oh.” She looked up at him.

“What?” He grinned widely and waggled his eyebrows in that way only Jack had—the one that showed suggestion and charm and _Jack_. “I’m invited? About time!”

“No!” Rose laughed. “I just hadn’t thought about it. I mean, the alone part. Just assumed you and Martha…but no.” She shook her head and leaned on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Thank you, Jack.”

“Anything for you, Rose. You’re family.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fluff. Sexy fluff. Sexy fluff in bed.

Later, in the privacy of their rooms, after toasts, laughter, food, and more dancing, the Doctor re-clasped the necklace around her neck and kissed her. 

“Political ‘marriages’, though I guess the closest English word would be alliance,” he said, lips brushing along her jaw, “were made and broken depending on the wind. When you have life spans as long as ours, and the ability to regenerate a dozen times, declaring yourself _married_ to only one person for the rest of their life was unheard of.”

Her fingers found the buttons to his oxford and she quickly undid them. The Doctor’s mouth glided down her throat, tongue flicking over the pounding pulse point there.

“How many wives did you have?” she asked, laughing.

She was a little tipsy on champagne and happiness and lovely anticipation. The Doctor’s long fingers slid over her shoulders, taking the straps of her sundress with him as he moved his hands down her arms.

“Oh, just the one. And not even her for long.” He pulled back and slipped the straps of her sundress over her shoulders, letting the silky material pool at her feet. “Too much the rebel me, even the good and strong name of my House wasn’t enough for most people to want to tie themselves to me. Especially after I renounced my name and took The Doctor.”

The Doctor shrugged and Rose could tell by the set of his shoulders, the tone of his voice, it no longer bothered him. She was glad of that, glad the memories didn’t weigh him down today of all days.

“And the pendant?” she asked, the last word a gasp of pleasure as his teeth closed over her nipple and tugged just as she liked.

“The only symbol of my world I have to give to you,” he said quietly, but with such soft reverence it brought tears to her eyes.

“Doctor,” she whispered, hoping all the love she felt for him, his gesture, what he’d done today, was conveyed in that one word. Sometimes she felt the words she had, the English language, were so inadequate.

He pressed his forehead against hers and held her for a heartbeat, two. Love and need and affection and tenderness swirled around and through her. When he pulled back, hands cupping her face, fingers combing through her hair, and kissed her, Rose knew he understood.

And then he spoke. He picked her up and laid her reverently on the bed, mouth on her body, fingers on her skin, love burning a bright silver-blue along their link. 

Rose didn’t understand the words he’d spoken as he’d slowly made love to her. The soft, lilting language of his home, no matter how often he used them when they were intimate, remained a mystery to her. But she’d felt them. Just as she’d felt the English and Gallifreyan words warm her heart when he slid the ring on her finger and promised to love and treasure her as long as he lived.

The Doctor moved slowly, drawing out her pleasure until she sobbed his name and begged for completion. When Rose came, it was hard and long and with a keening cry of his name on her lips, in her soul.

Rose forced her eyes open to watch him as he cried out her name, coming hard inside her. Before she had the chance to hold him close, keep him to her, he moved. Breathing heavy, he rolled off her and reached for his discarded jacket and his sonic.

“What are you doing?” Rose asked Curiosity moved her heavy limbs, and she forced herself to lean on her elbows then sit up and watch him.

He grinned over his naked shoulder and winked. Despite being utterly spent and floating on a post-sex high, Rose wanted to kiss along his shoulders to his mole, feel his muscles beneath her fingers and mouth.

“Final step in the long-forgotten, even longer unused marriage ceremony.” The Doctor held up his sonic and sat on the bed across from her. He paused and watched her carefully. “The bonding tattoos.”

“Tattoos?” She repeated, curious.

“Along your upper arms.” His fingers trailed lightly over the spot he apparently meant to tattoo. Then he stopped, cupped her cheek, and looked at her with an intensity that stole her breath. “Do you…will you…”

“Doctor,” Rose said and shifted so she knelt before him. She clasped his hands in hers and leaned in slightly. “Yes. To the ceremony, both of them, to the pendant, to even the tattoos, yes. I said yes to marrying you. I meant it, whatever it involves.”

He grinned, that slow, wide grin that took over his whole face. _Her_ grin. The one that made her heart stop then speed up, the one that made her breath catch and her brain short out. He kissed her hard and fast, just enough to leave her breathless.

He flicked through settings with a rapidity that shocked her, his concentration, despite his recent orgasm and her sitting naked across from him, completely on his sonic. His eyebrows came together to draw a faint crease between them, and the tip of his tongue caught between his lips. Rose shifted on the bed, moved to kiss him.

The only thing she wanted to know now was: How the hell was the _sonic_ a part of their marriage ceremony?

“Ah!” He exclaimed and held the screwdriver up as if he’d just invented it.

With great care, the Doctor took her left arm and held it out. “Keep steady. This won’t hurt, not like those tattoo needles you humans use in the 21st century, but it might sting.”

“What are you doing?” she asked, peering down as the Doctor held the sonic against her skin. “Okay, I know what you’re doing,” she amended. “But since when is the sonic a tattooing needle?”

“My sonic is a great many things,” he said. And the familiar faint buzzing sound filled their room as, with steady movements and great care, the Doctor moved the sonic over her arm in slow sweeping motions.

“I promise to love you, Rose Tyler,” he said, concentration still mostly on his actions. “As your husband, I vow to you that I shall protect you from all harm; that I shall love and respect you and hold you in the highest esteem. I shall embrace you until the end.”

He said more, promises of love-trust-forever in English before switching to Gallifreyan. The words sang through her, felt as if they were burned in her as he burned his promise into her skin.

She’d never thought of the sonic screwdriver as a tattoo needle, but then it did have thousands of settings. The wide tattooed band circling both upper arms said otherwise. The Doctor had taken great care to caress each symbol and explain what each loop and character meant:

Her name linked with his.  
Rose Tyler and the Doctor.  
His true name, the one he’d been given at birth but had renounced, linked after that as part of the ceremony.  
A circle of Gallifreyan words, their bond of marriage.  
 _Forever_ , tattooed in a circle in both English and Gallifreyan.

“What about you?” she asked, voice thick with emotion. It hadn’t hurt, no more than a minor, if constant, stinging sensation. But the symbolism of the tattoos made her breath catch and her throat close as she struggled to give voice to all she wanted to say. 

With a reverence that made her heart flip and a cocky wink, the Doctor handed her the sonic. “It’s preprogramed. Just keep it straight, no sudden movements.”

Rose nodded and took it from him, lining it up against his bicep and flicking it on. With stops and starts she repeated his words, doing her best to keep her concentration on creating the circles and whirls of his language. The last thing she wanted was to mess this up. But true to his word, the sonic was preprogrammed and moved her hand, rather than her hand moving the device.

“There. Bonded. Married. Tied to each other.” He sniffed and tossed the sonic into a pile of clothes. “Not just anyone could get me to do that, Rose Tyler.”

“But you wanted too, right?” she asked, fingers stroking over her artwork. Well, her preprogramed art work. “I mean.” She looked up at him. “You didn’t do all this because you thought it was something I wanted.”

The Doctor leaned in, lean muscular body blanketing hers. His hardening cock lay trapped between them and she shivered, shifted her hips against his. “I wanted to,” he promised against her lips. “Because I love you. And nothing will ever change that. Not ever.”

****  
“Really?” Rose huffed as they skidded to a stop behind what smelled to be a bin full of rotting food.

“It’s not my fault they mistook me for the El’Dor’an Ambassador!” the Doctor insisted in a harsh whisper, fingers tightening around hers.

“They’re 7 feet tall!” Rose reminded him. Unnecessarily.

“I know!” He gave her a look that said he’d been the one to tell her that little statistic. “And it’s still not my fault. I did try to explain the mix-up,” he added in a reasonable tone.

That little mix-up had been a day ago. And for that day the Doctor had done his best to negotiate a treaty between the 2 main sides of a warring planet, one he’d insisted had been at peace last time he’d been there. Then the real El’Dor’an Ambassador had arrived—late, full of apologies, and looking all 7 feet tall of himself.

“What I don’t understand is how a poetry festival came to this,” Rose admitted.

They crouched behind the rubbish bin and waited as a half dozen guards from both factions raced by, shouting for the imposters and demanding blood. Frankly, he didn’t understand it either. They’d been on a literary trip through the ages—John Milton, Edmund Spenser, Orson Wilde, James Joyce, Tennyson, Burns, and Blake.

He’d planned to take her to hear readings from H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, and possibly Kipling, but then remembered the poetry faire on Madroon Alpha.

“I don’t know,” he admitted in the sudden silence of the alleyway. “I don’t remember a civil war. And I don’t remember the El’Dor’an’s as being late to a peace conference. Or very good at peace ambassadorship.”

“Problems?” Rose asked, slipping her hand back into his. She grinned up at him.

He sighed. “I really just brought you here for the poetry,” he grumbled.

She stood on tiptoe and kissed him. “Let’s go see what this is all about. Maybe the El’Dor’an isn’t really an El’Dor’an. Or maybe there’s something else at work, yeah?”

And that’s how the honeymoon-that-wasn’t-a-honeymoon—but which was supposed to be a time to cement the bond between newly married couples (although Rose still insisted on calling it a honeymoon)—ended. With the Doctor and Rose running through what passed for cobblestone streets on Madroon Alpha in search of what really happened to their poetry festival and why there was a civil war going on.

And later, when they’d broken out of prison (for the second time) and discovered Rose had been right, the El’Dor’an ambassador wasn’t really from El’Dor’a and had been manipulating both sides for weapons smuggling profits, he tried not to grin like the proud husband he was.

Because no matter what he said about simply traveling, it was never as simple as that. And his wife, if he did say so himself, was absolutely brilliant. Especially when she saw what he didn’t. The little things that people said and did when he was always so focused on the bigger picture.

Maybe that’s what he needed to do—step back and examine the details. He’d been so worried about the time ripples and Jack and Rose’s return, that he’d never investigated the details. He’d already set the TARDIS to scan for cracks between universes in addition to the planets disappearing.

Maybe he needed to refine the searches. Narrow them down.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW honeymoon and then chatting in bed.

“Harder!” Rose cried and bit down on the Doctor’s shoulder.

He growled and the sound sent a shudder of pure need rippling through her. Her fingers dug into his arms, just below the tattoos circling his biceps, and she arched up to meet his every thrust. Her legs were over his shoulders and Rose dug her heels into his back, urging him faster and harder and—

“Yes, Doctor! _Doctor!_ ” She shouted his name, her orgasm crashing hard over her in white hot waves of need and her body stiffened and all she could feel was pleasure, unadulterated desire that spiraled up and through and over and over.

The Doctor’s thrusts grew erratic as he moved within her, and sparks of pleasure continued to dance over her skin. Rose forced her eyes to open, to watch her husband look down at her. Eyes so dark as to be almost black, face a mask of concentrated desire, sweat dripped off his forehead and onto her cheeks.

Rose tightened around him and breathed in the scent of him as she met his thrusts. She held him tighter, closer, filthy words falling from her lips and promises of love. Tangling her hand in his hair, she brought his forehead to hers and, despite the awkward position, tapped into their bond.

It flared to life in brilliant silver and blue, gold and red, caressing and stroking and embracing her, wrapping her in love and sex and need and want and desire and _Doctor_. Another shudder of arousal rocked through her, hard and fast and Rose rocked against him.

“Rose!” he shouted and the Doctor came hard within her.

His arms gave way and he collapsed on top of her, her legs falling uselessly to the sides. Spent. Content. Satiated. Perfect right where they were. If there was an invasion of body snatching, bunny hopping aliens right at that moment, Rose doubted her ability to move.

“Blimey,” the Doctor muttered into her shoulder.

“Yeah,” she breathed.

Her brain refused to form additional words and that was fine with Rose. She just wanted to lie there, the aftermath of really fantastic sex flowing over and through her, and simply be.

Eventually the Doctor moved, but it was only to slip out of her, flop onto his back, and pull her close. Uncaring of the sweat sticking to her, to both of them, Rose rested her head on his chest, one hand moving heavily to lie on top of his second heart. Her orgasm still hummed through her and their bond continued to flare brightly in her mind-heart-soul.

She didn’t know how long she stayed there, body cooling and heart slowing as she relaxed against the Doctor, drifting in that lovely state of full and thoroughly sated exhaustion.

When Rose eventually opened her eyes, it was only to stretch before resuming her place against the Doctor. Not yet—she wouldn’t get up just yet. Sure, she needed a shower. Later. With her husband.

She hadn’t thought much about the word or the connection that _husband_ provided, but it sounded so perfect whenever she said it.

“So,” she said, lips skimming along his shoulder.

When she reached the mark there, one of many she’d given him during the weeks-long honeymoon, ( _It’s not a honeymoon, Rose._ He’d tried to tell her but hadn’t a good explanation as to what it was. She stuck with honeymoon— _a vacation or trip taken by a newly married couple_ —much to the Doctor’s eye rolling.) she gently ran her tongue over it. Beneath her, the Doctor shuddered, his hand tightening on her hip.

“Hmm?” he asked, the question no more than a sound in the back of his throat.

“Does it feel any different?”

He opened his eyes to squint down at her, but his smile was lazy and totally pleased with himself. He cleared his throat and licked his lips. Rose followed the movement of his (very talented) tongue. “Does what feel any different?”

Rose shrugged. “Our bond. Sex. Marriage.”

The Doctor chuckled and turned to face her. Rose folded her arm beneath her head and slung a leg over his hips just to be closer to him. One of his hands fisted against his head, propping it up, the other glided from her shoulder to hip, over her thigh, then back again. He offered that slow, happy smile, the one that made her toes curl and heat coil through her body.

“Our bond does,” he agreed, mouth hovering an inch from hers. “Stronger than before.”

She’d been worried about that, knew he had been, too, after the still-unexplained events on Midnight. But when he’d examined their link, he’d found nothing broken; just weakened. They’d spent much of their (not) honeymoon working to strengthen it, to build up her mental walls and focus her reach through the bond.

“Do you feel any different?” he asked as he nibbled on her lower lip.

Rose nodded and pressed her lips to his. Comfort. Promise. Peace. “Yes,” she breathed. “It feels stronger.”

“Stronger like when you first…” he paused and the pain-anger-desolation of their separation shone bleakly in his gaze for a beat of his hearts. “When you came back?”

Rose nodded slowly as she compared the feel of it. “Hard to say, yeah? I mean yes, when I…” she cleared her throat. “When I returned, it felt stronger. Like it was suddenly there again, not the faint buzzing in the back of my mind, always reaching.”

The Doctor frowned. “Did it hurt? I never asked.”

He blew out a breath and fell onto his back, both hands scrubbing over his face. Her legs slid across his, but Rose didn’t move, just kept the slight physical connection between them.

“I should’ve…I should’ve asked,” he admitted. “But I was just so, so happy to have you back and in my arms. I didn’t…I didn’t want to talk about you not being here. With me. In our home.”

He didn’t want to take the chance on questioning her sudden appearance, that if he’d done so, she might disappear. The Doctor hadn’t said those words specifically (talking honestly wasn’t exactly in his repertoire) but Rose knew.

She shared that fear. Sometimes still did. When she woke and he wasn’t there and it took her a moment to hear the reassuring pulse of the TARDIS in her mind.

Rose shifted so she could look down at him. Took his hand in hers and linked their fingers. “Hey. Stop it.”

She licked her lips, debating how much to tell him. Taking a deep breath, and in the spirit of honesty and truth on their honeymoon, she decided to tell him all. There wasn’t anything he could do about it, and he’d feel guilty—a very, very fine reason not to say a damn word—but she was tired of secrets between them.

Even now, he held something back from her and it frustrated Rose. She’d tried to get him to talk, but he’d been so happy-at peace-calm and frankly she’d been too much the coward to push the issue and demand answers.

Rose nodded decisively and jumped in.

“It hurt at first,” she’d admitted. “I had awful headaches that pounded just along my temples. Mum thought I was dehydrated, and she might’ve been right. I didn’t eat or drink for a couple days…after.”

She’d been depressed and devastated. Whereas once Rose had had a plan for her life—not a good one, not an exciting one, not one she’d really wanted—she hadn’t planned anything since _Did I mention it also travels in time?_ and running full tilt into the TARDIS. What more of a plan had she needed?

Then she’d been adrift, lost in a new world, a new universe, without the man who’d anchored her with his hand in hers.

“Eventually the headaches lessened and I went to work for Torchwood.” Rose stopped and cleared her throat. The look in the Doctor’s eyes was bleak and she suddenly wished she had lied. “But it always felt as if I reached out for you, as if a part of my mind constantly reached out—searched—for you.”

Rose had expected him to react—to kiss her or hold her or something. Certainly not speak. That wasn’t the Doctor’s way, and wasn’t she cynical today?

Instead, his hand cupped her face, fingers gentle along her temples and he pulled her to him until their foreheads touched. Love-hope-need-love-hope-want-love-hope-protect. It all flared through her bright and warm and desperate in its necessity.

“I know.” His words were so low Rose almost thought she’d imagined them. “I felt the same way. Like there was a piece of me that was missing. Always reaching out, searching for you. Drove me mad, it did.”

He tried to chuckle, but it fell flat. Rose managed a smile anyway, and nodded slightly, her forehead still pressed to his, fingers running gently over his cheek, through his hair.

“It got better,” the Doctor continued. “But it was never the same. Still hurt. Felt like I was always searching for you, calling out to you. But you never answered back.”

“I tried,” she whispered. Her throat closed with tears and she swallowed hard.

She didn’t want to cry not now, not after all they’d been through and all the happiness they now shared. She was done crying for the past.

“Only you would try to reach across the Void, Rose Tyler.” The Doctor shook his head and rolled them again so they lay side-by-side, once more facing each other. He took her hand, the one not pillowed beneath her head, and threaded his fingers with hers.

“I don’t know what happened before, on Midnight,” Rose hesitated. They hadn’t really discussed that, either. And she decided now was the time for that, too. She didn’t expect him to tell her all 900+ years of his life, but important things were up there.

Midnight.  
Why the rush to marry.  
What secrets he continued to keep from her.

“But since then, since that first night, I can feel you so much…” She had no words to describe how it felt now, to feel the Doctor’s mind brush against hers. “More,” she settled on.

“And your aversion to being touched?” he asked, as his hand once more roamed over her body.

Concern in his tone, yes, but Rose also heard pride. Oh, he hadn’t liked it when she’d admitted what Martha had told him about not wanting to be touched. She had no explanation for that. It hadn’t lasted long—from just before their time on Midnight to when she’d woke from whatever had happened to her when that entity invaded the Doctor.

As far as she knew, it’d been that one time and only with Jack.

“Gone.” She shrugged, as at a loss now to describe what happened as she’d been then. “It was almost like it never happened.”

“Rose,” he said, drawing out her name. “I still don’t know _what_ happened. You should’ve felt no side effects at all, let alone like that.” He stopped and for a heartbeat Rose thought he was going to share a theory with her —he always had at least three—but no. Nothing.

“I don’t know.” She shrugged again. “It was there and gone. When I bumped into Jack it was like a shock, a shock over sandpaper against my skin. I don’t remember much about what happened on Midnight once—well, once Martha said I started screaming.”

She remembered pain and anger and a gleeful avarice and a need to…possess. Yes. That was the word. Not possess as the Doctor did when the made love. Not the safe-mine-possession of his love. An angry-hatred-need to possess and destroy and kill.

But the Doctor never really said what happened to him, and then it was marry me and let’s get the family together and let’s form this marriage bond. The man who waited years before asking her now couldn’t wait another day.

Rose couldn’t say she liked his sudden frantic need to complete their bond, but then again she didn’t _not_ like it. Between the time he’d asked her and the time they completed the ceremony, she’d realized how much she’d wanted it. Not to brag about her marriage to the Doctor.

To compete they circle they’d started years ago.

Rose brushed her fingertips over his forehead down his cheek; he’d been frantic to complete their marriage. And he was happy; Rose didn’t need a telepathic bond to tell her that. She knew him well enough without it to know. So what did he hold back from her? What did he hide? And why was he so afraid to share it with her?

“By the time we made it back to the TARDIS,” Rose said now, picking up the thread of conversation, “I was fine. No more pain, no more icepick in my brain.”

“You were hardly fine,” he grumbled, and she saw the fear in his eyes, fear for her.

Lifting her hand too his mouth he kissed her inner wrist, fingers playing with her ring. The contact seemed to ground him, settle him. But Rose was desperate to know what affected him so, what terrified him so much he couldn’t even tell her.

“I was…” Rose paused and searched for the right word. Sometimes words didn’t matter so much as feelings, emotions, the generalized knowledge of what she thought-felt-wanted-meant. Right now, the proper word mattered.

“I was _better_ ,” she decided. “Tired, weak, but my skin didn’t itch, I didn’t feel like sandpaper tried to rub off every inch of me, and though the bond was weaker, a thread between us, it was still there. Plus,” she added reasonably, “no more aversion to being touched.”

She didn’t remind him that he’d been the only one to touch her, besides Martha, between the hospital ward and the four of them returning to the TARDIS. And Martha’s touch, for some reason, hadn’t bothered her. After her strange reaction to Jack, Rose hadn’t _wanted_ to be touched, not even by a masseuse. And she’d really been looking forward to the massage.

“We made love that morning,” the Doctor reminded her. “You didn’t feel like that then?”

“Nope!” she said and grinned up at him. “As I recall, I felt other, much more pleasurable things that morning.”

His laugh was low and dark and washed over her with the promise of a repeat of that morning. Embers of excitement sparked to life and Rose hummed, lazy arousal making her blood heat. Did she want to seduce the Doctor here, in their bed? Or in the bathtub? The lights flickered, ever so subtly, and Rose smiled.

Good idea.

She stood and held out a hand to her lover. The Doctor watched her, eyes steady and dark, their bond still pulsing through her with glimmers of heat and need and hard hot sex against the wall and wrapped in love and passion and possession and _mine_.

Rose shivered and led the Doctor to their bathroom. It’d taken them a while to get the angle of wall sex just right, and it wasn’t her favorite position, but with the Doctor looking at her like that, like she was the sun and the moon and the center of the universe all rolled into _his_ , she wanted that.

Hard, hot need pounding through her. The uncontrolled uninhibited, unrestrained abandonment of the position.

“We don’t have to pick up Martha and Jack until tomorrow,” she reminded him, tongue running along the top of her teeth. She didn’t miss how his gaze followed the movement.

“Rose Tyler,” he said in that way he had. Her name didn’t sound like that—soft and seductive and pure sex and mine-love-lover- _wife_ —on anyone else’s tongue and she was perfectly fine with that. “When are you going to learn? My frankly fantastic ship is a _time machine_.”

He picked her up, and her legs wrapped around his waist. Laughing, she kissed him, giddy excitement heating her blood as surely as arousal.

“How can I forget?” Rose said as he stepped into the tub. “She’s the reason I ran away with you.”

The Doctor growled and in one move thrust up into her. Rose gasped, his name shuddering through her. Then his mouth was on hers, his fingers doing fantastic things to her clit and breasts. They had plenty of time to enjoy themselves. Martha and Jack could wait.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Honesty wherein Jack and the Doctor talk romance, marriage, and the future…Rose and Martha talk about the past and secrets the Doctor’s kept.

“So where did you two crazy kids go on your honeymoon?” Jack asked as he strolled around the console, lightly caressing the TARDIS.

The Doctor looked up at him, that momentary flash of _wrongness_ there and gone. He was getting used to Jack’s presence, but whenever the other man suddenly appeared, it always jolted the Doctor. Just a bit, just enough to take him out of the moment for a hearts beat or two.

Today, however, that doubleness he sometimes experienced was absent. He didn’t see the time ripples around Jack, or even further—around Martha and the TARDIS. Today it was simply Jack’s solid, unmoving presence in the timeline. All the timelines, every timeline. Disconcerting, but not painful.

No headaches, at least.

“It wasn’t a…” the Doctor trailed off and decided that explaining what their time together was or wasn’t to anyone else but Rose didn’t matter.

And Rose had decided that no matter what he’d called it, it was their honeymoon. Course, she’d said it naked, her tongue peeking out at him from the corner of her mouth, pendant nestled between her breasts, ring glinting in the soft light of their bedroom. When she looked at him like that, when she looked at him at all, the Doctor would agree to anything.

“We explored the jungles of Martice’dana Prime.” Where they’d run from spear-wielding natives before they even got to the pyramid ruins.

“And the oceans of Worthna Beta.” Where he’d made love to Rose in the warm ocean waters beneath the double moons and he’d confessed to her how he’d wanted to make love to her in the crystal clear pools of lining the Glass Pyramids of San Kaloon.

“Met a couple famous Earth authors…” he trailed off. And they’d got caught up in that minor mix-up on Madroon Alpha where the natives had mistaken him for the El’Dor’an ambassador.

The Doctor sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face and admitted the mix-up to Jack. The other man laughed and laughed until the Doctor wondered if Jack would even notice being tossed out the doors, back into Martha’s flat.

“El’Dor’an’s are seven feet tall!” Jack finally sputtered. He wiggled his eyebrows. “And are very good at other things. Diplomacy? Only in bed.”

“Yes.” The Doctor glared. “I know.” He sighed and shrugged. “I did try to explain the difference. But they insisted. And in very lyrical poetry, too. And then the real ambassador arrived, but he wasn’t really El’Dor’an, and, well.” He shrugged and tugged his ear. “Anyway. Everyone seemed to enjoy the wedding.”

The Doctor stood from where he polished the brass sphere and stepped in front of Jack. He had a lot to say to Jack, but had only managed to find that ease with his emotions around Rose. But Jack… Jack had protected him on Midnight, had forgiven him for abandoning him on the Game Station, and most importantly, had stayed.

Lump in his throat, the Doctor swallowed hard around it and wondered how mere words could ever be adequate enough.

“Thank you.” He spoke quietly and sincerely and wanted Jack to know just how important it was too both he and Rose all that Jack had done for the ceremony and party afterwards. “I know the party meant a lot to Rose.”

Jack gave him his patented grin, eyebrows rising. “Just to Rose?”

Rolling his eyes, the Doctor laughed. But he nodded decisively. No running from this. No sidestepping or backing out of ignoring it. “And to me. Not just the reception, but also for standing up for me. My best man, as it were. I…I wouldn’t want anyone else to have done that. Thank you.”

Before he could brace himself, Jack enveloped him in a hug, laughter echoing along the console room. Even the TARDIS joined in, Her pleased hum echoing along Her rotor and in his head. The Doctor smiled and, once Jack had released him, patted his ship in thanks as well.

“So what have you and Martha been up to?” The Doctor asked and instantly regretted his choice of words.

Jack laughed again, now it was the I-don’t-kiss-and-tell laugh. But then he stopped and folded his arms over his white t-shirt. He stared down at the grating for several moments, looking as serious as the Doctor had ever seen him.

As he waited, the Doctor stretched his mind, reaching for the bond he shared with Rose. She and Martha had taken off for TARDIS rooms unknown only a few minutes after the TARDIS had landed in Martha’s flat. He felt her laughter and happiness across the bond, felt her reach out toward him and caress his mind with hers.

Shivering at the contact, he wondered what they were doing, but for the moment satisfied himself that Rose was happy.

“What was it like?” Jack asked suddenly.

His blue eyes landed on the Doctor, thoughtful and curious and quiet. The door between the TARDIS and Martha’s flat remained open for reasons only the TARDIS knew and cast the other man in a strange blue-green-sunlight glow.

“What was what like?” he asked. “And if this is a question about our sex life…” He warned, narrowing his eyes.

Jack snorted in laughter but remained somber. “No. But if you’re willing to share details…? No? Maybe later.” He shrugged and took a deep breath. “Marriage. To Rose,” he added as if the Doctor went around marrying every companion.

Well, maybe Jack would’ve, but it’d taken him 900+ years to fall in love like this and admit he didn’t just want Rose, but needed her in ways he could barely admit to himself—to live and breathe sounded like a clichéd poem, but without her, he knew he’d never have lived long past Autons in London.

Could he survive without her? He had, extremely badly, those few months she’d been lost to him. And he hadn’t treated Martha very well.

Still needed to apologize to her about that.

“I take it,” the Doctor said with equal sobriety, “that you don’t mean the ceremony itself.” He took a deep breath and shoved his hands into his pockets, eyes drifting down the corridor to the rest of the TARDIS, where Rose and Martha were.

“You’ve lived a long time,” Jack said, watching him closely now. “I’m apparently going to live for another 5 billion years.” He tried to smile but it fell flat. “Is this your first marriage?”

“Not my first,” he admitted slowly, wondering how much to share with Jack. “But the first one where I wanted to get married.” He let out his breath in a rush. “The first one where I love my wife.”

There. He’d admitted it aloud to someone other than Rose. Jack just nodded, seeming unconcerned with the momentous verbal declaration to someone not Rose.

“Doc,” he said patiently, with that lightning fast grin. “I’ve known how you felt about Rose since I came on board. No.” He shook his head. “I mean what made you decide to jump?”

“Jump?” The Doctor bounced on his toes and rolled his shoulders. “I didn’t jump. Fall?” He shrugged, first one shoulder then the other. “That’s a little more accurate. It was easy,” he said quietly. “Easy to do with her. When I first met Rose, I needed her so badly. She made me want to live. Want to show off the universe to her.”

(He’d tried to die on the Titanic but that family had been so good to him, had _cared_ , and he couldn’t allow them to die. Then Krakatoa, but he’d saved the villagers instead of standing still and letting history take its course. He’d never told Rose about those, though she’d mentioned seeing him in photos and drawings in someone’s Doctor Conspiracy Collection. Had never told her how he’d planned to die in London. Would have if it weren’t for her.)

He sucked in a breath. “Then I just needed her. Well, couldn’t let her go, maybe. ” His hands curled into fists in his pockets. Empty of her hand, itching to feel her fingers around his, her skin against his.

( _A hand to hold_ , he’d once told her. But she was so much more than that. His lifeline. His salvation.)

“Do you know,” the Doctor admitted, “I was going to ask her to marry me after Kyoto? Didn’t want to ask then, while we were there, wanted the pendant and that was on the TARDIS. But then there was…”

He shuddered and swallowed hard. He’d almost lost both loves that day on the Game Station—his beloved ship and his beloved Rose.

“Anyway.” The Doctor scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’ve always run, Jack. From Gallifrey, from the Time Lords, from those I left behind. Rose made it impossible for me to run. Or run alone.”

“Your hand to hold,” Jack whispered.

The Doctor turned sharply to look at him but the other man looked down at his own hands. Jack curled his fingers into a fist and the Doctor wondered if he missed Martha’s hand in his. And just how serious their relationship had become.

“Are you planning to ask Martha to marry you?” the Doctor asked cautiously, neutrally.

He didn’t know how he felt about that but, as Rose was fond of reminding him, Martha’s life wasn’t his to interfere in.

“No,” Jack said on a breath of laughter. But the conviction of the word didn’t reach his eyes. “I don’t think she would marry me,” he admitted quieter. Sadder. Melancholy. “She’s…” he swallowed. Shrugged. 

“She’s done so much for me,” Jack admitted. “But I don’t think she sees her life like this.” He waved a hand over the console, encompassing the TARDIS, their life. Current life. “Traveling and exploring and all. She wants to be a doctor. Wants to help people.”

“Rose asked her to be her doctor,” the Doctor offered. “To help her through the pregnancy.” Jack looked up sharply. “When Rose gets pregnant,” the Doctor hastily added. “She’s not. Yet.”

Nodding, Jack returned to looking at his hands. “Martha doesn’t see herself traveling. She sees this as an adventure, a time away from her real life. A holiday, I guess.”

“Did she say that?” the Doctor asked.

He’d suspected as much when he first asked Martha outside the place of Leo’s birthday party. But then he hadn’t really cared. Just hadn’t wanted to be alone. ( _Don’t be alone, Doctor_ , Donna’s voice echoed to him.) Had seen Martha’s arrival as a short stay, a quick interlude—a few trips then home for her and…alone for him.

“Not in so many words,” Jack said softly. “But she talks about her family and returning to her studies. Well, she’s still studying,” Jack amended with a shrug but continued to talk to his hands, the floor of the TARDIS. “But she talks as if this is just a break from her ‘real’ life. And she sounds as if she wants to go back to it.”

The Doctor expected that, but hadn’t really—he’d expected it before Martha and Rose had become so close and she’d stood beside Rose during their marriage ceremony. Before Martha and Jack had formed a relationship. Before she told her entire family. Before she became family. Now, now he expected Martha to stay. To _remain_ part of their family.

“What about you?” he asked Jack. “What do you want? You’re welcome to stay as long as you want,” he added as neutrally as he could manage. Despite years of practice, the Doctor had a feeling it didn’t come out quite as disinterested as he’d intended.

“I know. And thanks.” And the fact Jack didn’t make a suggestive comment really worried the Doctor. “Does it bother you?” He asked, still not looking up. “Does it bother you that you’re going to outlive her?”

“Yes.” He breathed in deeply. “Oh, yes. Terrifies me.” He swallowed hard then admitted his deepest fears-desires-needs. “If I could, Jack, if I could somehow manage it, I’d make her immortal, too. I’d siphon energy from the TARDIS, I’d play with her genes, I’d do anything. Everything. I’d destroy the universes if it meant keeping her with me forever.”

Jack didn’t look shocked or disgusted or even appalled. The other man’s sharp blue eyes met his and he simply looked curious. Understanding. Accepting. “What’s stopping you?”

“She is,” the Doctor admitted. His gaze drifted down the hall again, though he knew he couldn’t see Rose. “She’d never want me to do that. She’s come to terms with her mortality a hell of a lot easier than I have.”

“But it didn’t stop you,” Jack pointed out. “You still did something about it. Made love to her. Formed a telepathic bond with her. Asked her to marry you. Planning to have a kid, you two are.”

“I realized,” he said, thinking about Slitheens and Daleks and almost losing her. And losing her and struggling to live without her for too many months. “I realized that either I moved forward or stayed still. Or,” he frowned, tugging his ear, “maybe Rose moved forward. Hard to say,” he admitted with a grin. “She’s not one for staying still.”

“Neither of you are,” Jack pointed out, unnecessarily.

“Are you?” the Doctor asked.

“I could be,” the other man admitted. “I did it for 60 years waiting for you.”

“Is Martha?” the Doctor asked, more insistent.

“That’s the question, Doc.” Jack sighed and straightened. “I don’t know.”

****  
“This is a beautiful place,” Martha said dropping a hand to the ground so she could caress and properly thank the TARDIS. “I really needed this.”

Get used to the TARDIS? Done. Get used to traveling? Oh so easy. But get used to being in a relationship? With Jack? They were in one or she considered them to be in one. Then what? What was holding her back?

The sex was…just wow. But it was more than that. Her fears were more at least. Was their relationship more than just sex? Yes. Yes, she believed it was.

Had she traded one holding pattern for another?

Martha rolled her shoulders and took a deep breath, the faint scent of jasmine subtly caressing her. Breathing deeply of the scent, she relaxed. She’d worry about that later. For now, she’d enjoy. 

They’d dug out Rose’s photo albums, several from before she’d been in that other universe, and new ones with the 4 of them traveling. Rose had taken several photos on her mobile and was showing Martha a couple from the various places she and the Doctor had gone on their not-honeymoon honeymoon.

“Yes.” Rose stretched and laughed. “The TARDIS really knows how to take care of us, doesn’t She?”

The beautiful ship in question hummed appreciatively and Martha grinned. She dropped her hand from her lap back to the simulated ground, just to touch the TARDIS, and once again smelled the comforting scent of jasmine.

“I’ve missed Her,” Martha admitted. “I seem to sleep better here.”

“I know what you mean,” Rose agreed.

“There’s just something so comforting being here. The hum—I know scientists would classify it as white noise, but it’s more than that.”

A lot more, Martha thought. She didn’t know how, or how it was even possible, but she’d swear the TARDIS blocked out the nightmares. The bad memories. The aftermath of life and death situations and people she couldn’t save and those who’d sacrificed themselves for her. For them. 

Before spending a week back at her flat, Martha thought it was sleeping in Jack’s arms.

But then she realized that that comfort had started before Jack. Oh, he’d helped when they were trapped in 1969, and she loved sleeping in the same bed as him, but Martha honestly believed the TARDIS kept the nightmares and demons at bay.

“I haven’t been sleeping well,” she admitted. “I thought it was being away from the TARDIS.”

Rose looked at her sharply. “It’s easy to fall asleep to the humming, isn’t it?”

Nodding, Martha didn’t look at her closest friend, but looked out over the bright gardens, colors mixing and clashing and complimenting each other in a way only the TARDIS understood. It seemed perfect, however, and the scent wasn’t overwhelming. Martha leaned back on her lounger and sipped her mimosa and sighed.

She didn’t know where that admission had come from, but if she couldn’t tell Rose, who could she? They’d grown so close since Rose’s return in New York.

“Too much studying?” Rose asked cautiously.

Martha shook her head. “No. First it was the difference in traveling with the Doctor. Then it was always go-go-go. We rarely stopped for longer than a couple hours between places. Then I worried about what my family would say if they knew—then I worried what they’d ask once they did know.”

“I thought you said you could sleep in Jack’s arms?” Rose asked. And Martha didn’t miss the teasing hint in her tone. Or the worry beneath it.

“It’s not that.” Martha turned to look at her friend. “I can. And he helps keep the nightmares at bay. But sometimes it isn’t enough.”

“I’ve found,” Rose said softly, “it’s easier to sleep with someone who understands. But it’s also easier if you talk about them. Are you still worried about your family?”

“I don’t worry about those things anymore,” Martha admitted, acknowledging Rose’s very accurate statement with a smile and nod.

“My family knows and I keep what I tell them to a minimum. They seem to accept it—at first it was questions, questions, questions: where’d you go, who’d you see, what’s it like, how long were you gone, have any pictures? Now it’s less—they’re living their life and I’m living mine.”

She took a deep breath. She’d already told Jack her nightmares. Her terrors and fears. But she hated burdening Rose with them. Not because she thought the other woman wouldn’t understand, but because it seemed as if Rose handled this—the traveling, the threats and death defying situations, the aftermath—so much better than she did.

“No,” Martha whispered. “Now, when I dream, it’s only about the Daleks. Not about the Weeping Angels or being trapped away from all I know and love. Not about genetic engineering gone wrong or prehistoric witches come to life or what my family thinks. It’s always about them.”

“Daleks?” Rose repeated in an icy voice. Not angry—scared.

“Yeah, when we found them in Manhattan.” Martha frowned and set her drink on the table. “You know, when you and Jack both arrived? We’d just come from the New York sewers where 4 had survived.”

“I…He…” Rose shook her head, eyes wide and unfocused. A slight tremor shook her whole body. “I didn’t know you’d met Daleks. Did they say…” she swallowed and looked pale and angry and scared. “Did they say who they were?” Her voice shook just slightly. “Where they were from?”

“I think,” Martha said slowly, watching her friend and wondering how to call the Doctor in case of an emergency. Would 999 even work here? Was there a direct TARDIS extension? “They were from the Cult of Sakaroo or something.”

“Skaro,” Rose croaked. She hastily sipped her own mimosa, but it seemed to do little to ease the path of her words. “They were from the Cult of Skaro. They survived.” She closed her eyes and shuddered. “They always survive.”

“That’s what the Doctor said,” Martha ventured. Worried-scared-concerned.

What the hell was going on? And how could Rose not know about the Daleks? While she didn’t find it so difficult to believe that the Doctor wouldn’t tell her, she really honestly did. After all that about Midnight, and the long talks about having a child then the wedding…

Martha shook her head, ice leaden in her belly. Why hadn’t the Doctor said anything to Rose about the Daleks? And what more about them did she, did either of them, not know?

“He never told me. He never said.” Rose drew in a deep breath and on a rush of exhale said, “He kept that from me.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor, raw and open and confessing the last secrets he kept from Rose.

He and Jack had raced from the console down the hall, the Doctor following the now-burning bond between him and Rose. He didn’t know what happened; one heartsbeat she was fine and there and her mind idly caressing his through their bond. The next, she was scared and furious, and while it didn’t exactly feel like a slap across their connection, the hard, closed-off feel was worse.

It felt like she’d been trapped in the other universe again, too far for even him to reach. And his mind rebelled against that. Needed contact with his lover, his mate, his wife.

The Doctor burst through the door. Positive nothing could penetrate the TARDIS, he all too clearly remembered being transmitted off his ship and onto that Game Station. 

Hearts beating wildly, mind burning from lack of contact with Rose, he looked around the garden patio expecting an attack.

But the gardens looked fine. Open and normal, a brightly sunny day with the faintest of breezes, he took a moment to admire the room where Rose and Martha had evidently gathered. The sun shone a brilliant orange-yellow in a cloudless sky, several simulated birds flew along the simulated sky, and the flowers all bloomed at their peak despite different species and planet of origin.

Nothing looked out of place. Nothing looked about to spring to life and attack. And he knew both women were still here. But the shocked anger pulsing along their bond told the Doctor that despite the normalness of the room, nothing was all right.

“This is nice,” Jack comment, looking around in appreciation. “Sexy Girl, you’re full of surprises.”

The TARDIS hummed happily.

The Doctor glanced from the sky to Jack, but had other things to worry about besides the captain’s continued flirting with his ship.

Rose and Martha sat on a pair of lounge chairs; an umbrella shaded their upper bodies with food and drink on a low table of between them. Scattered on the stone-covered ground were several photo albums, some he hadn’t seen since Rose first traveled with him, and a couple of Martha’s textbooks.

Martha looked over as he and Jack stepped onto the stone patio and shot him an angry, annoyed glare. She looked tired, the Doctor realized with a start, but then she stood.

“You’re on your own, Time Lord,” she muttered as she walked past.

Despite his excellent hearing, the Doctor only caught fragments of phrases as muttered to herself, striding purposely toward Jack: _wrong kind of secrets_ , something about think he could trust, and _wanker_. That last one was pretty clear.

“What?” he asked, but Martha had already grabbed Jack’s hand and was dragging him out of the gardens.

Jack shot him a look over his shoulder and gleefully mouthed, “You’re so screwed!”

The Doctor turned back to Rose and only then noticed how stiffly she sat in her lounger. Despite knowing he had entered the room, she hadn’t turned around, hadn’t so much as moved as far as he could tell. And the angry-hurt-disappointment that simmered between them scraped along his skin and the nerve endings of his mind.

“Rose?” he asked quickly crossing to her chair and sitting beside her. Icy fingers settled around his hearts and despite her obvious inflexibility, he reached a hand out to hers. “What’s wrong?”

She didn’t look at him, held herself closed off. He leaned closer and, while she didn’t pull back, she didn’t lean in, either. She stared into the distance, but the Doctor had the feeling she no longer saw the view.

“You never told me about the Daleks.”

Her voice was cold, hard, emotionless if he didn’t know her as well as he did. Hurt and angry and scared, oh so scared. ( _Rose told me about the Daleks, she was terrified of them._ Jackie had said the words to him in the offices of Yvonne Hartman, but the Doctor had known. She’d held him after meeting the lone Dalek in the basement museum in Utah. Had held her during her nightmares after the Game Station when they were relearning each other. And then had promised the universe anything if only she could hold him-he could hold her one last time after the Battle of Canary Wharf.)

“Rose—”

“No.” She cut him off and swung her gaze to his.

Anger and betrayal and heartbreak. And tears. But then she blinked and he wondered if he’d imagined the tears. No, he hadn’t. And the fact that she cried and hid it from him, hurt more than he believed possible.

“Weeks I’ve been back. Months!” She shouted but he just watched her. “I didn’t want to ask,” she admitted quieter. “I didn’t want to know. But you were hiding things from me. I knew you were. _Know_ you _are_. But I was just so happy to be back and then Jack was here, and Martha and I were becoming friends.”

She stopped and took a deep breath, eyes light with misery. And betrayal. He froze—his hearts, his blood, his entire being froze at the look of betrayal she gave him.

“I trusted you,” she whispered. “You kept things from me before; not just about Jack, but you never told me everything. Even when I asked. Even when I knew you were lying.”

“Rose, I never—” The Doctor cut himself off this time. He had no honest words to counter her statement.

Rose stopped and sucked in a deep breath as if she hadn’t heard him. “But when I came back, I thought things had changed. You were happy, I know you were. _We_ were happy.”

Her fingers brushed the pendant she wore, her ring sparkling in the artificial light provided by the TARDIS. His eyes followed the movement, still not sure what to do.  
What to say.  
How to breathe.  
His thumb absently played with his own ring, but he made no move to take her hands again. Stilled his movements lest she realize he still touched her and pull even further away.

“And then it was let’s have a baby,” her voice caught. “And let’s get married. And bloody public displays of affection.”

Her gaze dropped to his hand, covering hers, where his silver wedding band sat. She sat up straighter and moved so her hand was no longer touching his. He felt the loss of her touch as keenly as he did the blocked bond.

In a harsher tone she asked-demanded, “Why didn’t you tell me about the Daleks you met in Manhattan?”

“I was afraid.” The words came so fast, so honestly, they burnt his throat. Rose’s eyes narrowed but she silently waited. Didn’t pull further back. Waited. “And furious. I was so furious that they’d survived. I’d lost you.”

His voice broke and he swallowed hard. When he spoke again, the words came hard and hurried, harsh and honest. The Doctor didn’t think about them, simply spoke. Spoke to the only being in the entire universe who loved him enough to maybe understand. And forgive.

“I’d lost you to them,” he continued in an angry rush. “They were the reason you were trapped on that world instead of here with me. When I saw them, when I realized which ones they were, where they were from, how they’d survived Canary Wharf, I wanted them to kill me.”

( _Because now he's got me._ And he did it anyway. Kept her safe even as the action killed him. _Once the breach collapses, that's it. You will never be able to see her again. Your own mother!_ Despite the words, the fact she’d returned, returned to _him_ , made the dire situation a little less so. Made his hearts pound faster. _I made my choice a long time ago, and I'm never going to leave you._ If they got out of this—when they got out of this—he’d ask her. Felt bad for Jackie not knowing. Felt bad for wanting Rose to himself. Wanted to grab her and kiss her. Wanted her forever.)

Rose sucked in a breath but he didn’t stop. Had to continue. “I didn’t care that I’d be leaving Martha in 1930 New York alone. I didn’t care that the TARDIS would be abandoned at the base of the Statue of Liberty. I just _didn’t care_. I wanted the pain of losing you to _stop_. Just to stop. All I knew was that if they killed me, the pain would end.”

The Doctor sucked in a deep breath, smelled spring and Rose and the underling scent of the TARDIS. She didn’t seem to be happy with him, either. He moved before he realized he planned to. His hands curled around Rose’s shoulders and drew her closer, shaking her lightly to make his point.

Scared and angry and desperate.

“And then you were back and I didn’t care how!” He insisted. Shouting. He was shouting and didn’t care. Fear and worry and the crushing terror of holding onto her in case she was pulled from him again.

Ripped from him.  
Rip apart the universe.  
Keep her with him at all costs.

“I didn’t care how you had come back to me only that you had!” Angry and insistent and desperate. So very desperate to make her understand. Desperate not to lose her.

“I only wanted to keep you with me. I didn’t want to talk about Daleks. I didn’t want to admit to you that I’d let one escape. Or that I suspected that by that one Dalek escaping, it created a tear between universes— _just enough to let you jump through!_ ”

The Doctor stopped and breathed heavily through his nose. Rose hadn’t moved. Hadn’t said anything. But she no longer looked at him with that vacant, hurt look that tore his hearts to shreds.

“How did you let the Dalek escape?” Rose asked with a calmness that belied her earlier anger and at odds with his own terrified rage.

Their link no longer burned with that closed off blocked feel, with an underlying anger and betrayal. Now it lay dormant. No, he realized. Not dormant, but calm.

“What?” he asked, completely thrown.

“How did you let the Dalek escape?” she repeated. Still calm. Was that a slight metal caress? A slight understanding enveloping him? “Did you turn your back, knowing it’d try to get away?”

“No,” he snapped, annoyed now. “Of course not.”

“Then how was it your fault?” she asked.

“Because I didn’t kill it,” he admitted. He uncurled his fingers from her upper arms, just where their bonding tattoos sat covered now by a thin t-shirt, and scrubbed his hands down his face. Fatigue tugged his limbs, anger and pain clenched his hearts.

“If I’d killed it,” the Doctor admitted, “it wouldn’t be out there now. Waiting.”

“They never die.” Her voice cracked and she took a moment.

He watched her, one hand clasping hers. Not sure when he’d taken her hand. When she’d let him. The Doctor had no words, in any language, to describe the relief he felt when she turned her hand over and slipped her fingers through his.

Such a simple gesture that belied how much he needed her hand in his.

“They always find a way to survive, the very epitome of survival of the fittest.” Rose closed her eyes and suddenly looked as exhausted as he felt. “Why didn’t you say anything, Doctor?”

“I told you,” he said in a calmer, quieter voice the words bleak in his throat. “Because I was terrified. _Am_ terrified. You’d only just returned to me. I didn’t want—” He swallowed. “Rose, the Daleks almost took you from me the first time you met one. The second time, you ripped apart my TARDIS to save me when they tried to take you away from me.”

And he was never worth her tears or her compassion. And yet she always managed to show him how wrong he was.

“The third time,” he said, raw and open before her, “they succeeded.”

His fingers tightened around her.  
Or maybe hers tightened around his.

“I didn’t—I couldn’t—I don’t—Rose, I’m terrified of losing you.” The words were harsh and dark and painful in the bright spring day the TARDIS provided.

“I don’t expect to know all 900 years of your life,” she began softly. Watched him carefully. “Or who the first person you kissed was. I don’t even expect you to tell me the life stories of every single person you ever traveled with and detailed stories of all your exploits.”

He grimaced but caught the hint of her smile and latched onto it. With both hands he desperately held onto the hope her smile provided.

“But this isn’t about your distant past, Doctor.” Rose sighed, her thumb brushing his. “This is about what happened right before I returned. This is about the Daleks. What else?”

“What?” he hedged.

“What else haven’t you told me?” she asked. “I know there’s more, but I let the ceremony and honeymoon and you distract me. No more secrets. Not between us.” But softer now; insistent yes, but not yelling-demanding-furious-angry. Their bond flare to gloriously warm life and some of the tension eased out of him.

The Doctor sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. Now was as good a time as any to admit about Jack’s Vortex Manipulator, he supposed, and how easy it would’ve been for them to jump out of 1969 if he hadn’t been worried specifically about her cellular degradation.

Confession, who the hell thought it was good for the soul?

****  
“Beach,” Jack said decisively and he set the table.

He was looking at Martha when he said that, and Rose didn’t need to see his expression, or Martha’s smile, to get the hint. Jack wanted a nude beach.

“We just did a spa,” Martha said with a grimace as she looked through their wine rack. “How about something new?” She frowned and shuddered and looked at Rose.

Rose shared her aversion to anything spa related, though the beaches of SaGrenos were supposedly famed for their tranquility. Then again, Midnight had had something about tranquil in its brochure. No thanks.

That was the last time she believed anything in the brochure.

“Sorry, Doc.” Jack turned to grin widely at him. “Won’t be seeing your bum this time.”

Rose laughed, then laughed harder at the Doctor’s look, that blush-glare-embarrassed-exasperation he managed so well with Jack.

“You should be so lucky,” the Doctor shot back.

“Hiking?” Rose ventured, adding a pinch of spice to the chicken the Doctor grilled on the stove-now-grill in their kitchen.

Jack had insisted, once again as he had during his original time traveling with them, that a ship had a galley not a kitchen. Rose refused to call this beautiful creation a _galley_. Seemed so simple and unexpressive a term for the warm, beautiful creation the TARDIS had offered them.

She looked back to Martha as she offered a new option to what had become a day-long discussion on where to go next. The four of them had fallen into a relaxed rhythm in the kitchen, effortlessly making meals as a group. Tonight it was spicy chicken, purple potatoes from some 33rd century Earth colony that tasted divine and even better as chips, and several specialty vegetables from a variety of planets and times.

Rose’s job were the chips, which she didn’t mind one bit and snuck one now.

“Caught.” The Doctor grabbed her hand just as her fingers curled around another purple chip. Eyes on hers, he brought her hand to his mouth, licking the salt and vinegar from her fingers.

Rose forgot how to breathe.

“Oh come on,” Martha said good naturedly. She stood with a bottle of wine and a grin even as she shook her head. “Not in the kitchen!”

“Oh, like you and Jack aren’t up to all sorts of things in here,” Rose shot back with equal fun.

“Hey now,” Jack said, coming round the table to take the bottle from Martha and open it. “Have you ever seen us making love in the kitchen?”

Making love vs having sex, the distinction was not lost on Rose. But she laughed and winked at Martha.

“Just because you weren’t caught,” the Doctor said, transferring the chicken onto platter. “Doesn’t mean you weren’t in here.”

Martha blushed and looked down, but Rose caught the embarrassed-happy-striving for innocence grin. “So,” Martha said brightly in a pathetic attempt to change the subject. “How about Silous?” she suggested. “Isn’t that the place with the waterfalls you were talking about, Doctor?”

“Ohh, yes.” The Doctor held out her chair, and his long fingers brushed over the base of her next as she sat. Rose didn’t miss the salacious desires he very clearly projected through their bond and shivered at both his touch and his mental caress.

Whatever caused this oral fixation he had, she embraced it whole heartedly.

“They also have the entire sector’s medical history,” he added, “and some very fascinating artifacts on display in a medical history museum.”

“Sure,” Rose agreed. Historical medical museum she could do without, but the waterfalls sounded lovely. A perfect spot to make love to her husband. “I’m in.”


End file.
